It's been brought to my attention that my article about the delisting of Yellowstone grizzly bears - published online by the Earth Times in November 2013 - has disappeared along with the entire Earth Times website, so here it is in it's complete, unedited form. Please note the links to the IGBST website at the end no longer show the data indicated in the article due to political forces removing it to support the delisting agenda
The article:
THE FALL OF
THE WILD: Are We Losing Our Grizzly Bears?
The grizzly bear is one of the last symbols of
wilderness remaining in North America. Already in danger from a failing
habitat, the grizzly now faces its potential demise at the hands of political
ladder-climbing. Will we act in time to preserve the species or allow this
majestic and misunderstood creature to fade into the annals of history?
By Chris Nunnally
Each spring, I look forward to
the arrival of summer with great anticipation. This is that time of year when I
leave my cluttered city life behind and begin migrating to the Northern Rockies
of Glacier National Park. I go in search of solitude, tranquility…and bears.
Grizzly bears are indispensable
to me and one of the most powerful symbols of wilderness we have left.
Statistically, they pose a ridiculously small threat (with falls, drownings, and
exposure topping the “cause of death” lists in the national parks), but you
still have to be alert and aware when recreating in their backyard. For me, the
heightened sense of awareness that comes over me in grizzly country is the
strongest feeling of life I have ever experienced. In my mind, that humility
and awareness is the true value of wild country and is a large part of what I
go out there in search of.
But how long will it last? The
Glacier and Yellowstone ecosystems contain the only surviving grizzly bears in
North America outside of Canada and Alaska and at least one of those
populations is facing an uncertain future.
Due to increasingly warmer winter
temperatures in Yellowstone, an infestation of the mountain pine beetle has
spread to higher elevations where it has never before been able to survive and
devastated the whitebark pines and the annual crop of nuts they produce, which
are a vital source of late-season protein for grizzly bears. In 2010, the year
of the infamous Soda Butte attack near Cooke City, Montana, overall whitebark
pine health was dramatically low, an anomaly that cannot be ruled out as a
causal factor in the attack.
The details of the Soda Butte
incident are not entirely clear, the reasons why it occurred having been
glossed over and left unexplained, the usual standard when it comes to bear
attacks. While there do seem to have been some predatory aspects to the attack
(one of those killed was fed upon, though it’s unknown if that was the bear’s
intention going in or if it was an opportunistic feeding once it found itself
with a dead body), Deborah Freele, who survived the attack, said that the bear
did not let her go and move away until she stopped screaming and resisting and
played dead. Had the attack been predatory in nature, playing dead would have
only encouraged the bear to start feeding; the fact that it let go of Deborah
and went away indicates the attack may have been defensive, as if something had
given the bear concern for the safety of her cubs.
Killed two days after the attack,
the mother bear was necropsied and isotopes from her blood, serum, and hair
revealed that for the previous two years, she and her cubs had lived on a near
exclusive plant-based diet with no indications of human food or garbage
present. Isotopes of sulfur, which would indicate consumption of whitebark pine
nuts – what the family should have been eating that time of year – were not
present, nor were any indications of having eaten meat. Even though it was late
July, the bears still wore their winter coats and they weighed in at the low
end of the normal range for average bears. They were extremely malnourished.
It is well documented in many
studies that the nutritional value of a good pine nut crop not only greatly
increases a bear’s odds of surviving winter hibernation but also results in
better cub reproduction. When a female bear successfully mates, the pregnancy
does not automatically take. If the female enters her den with enough stored
fat and protein to support herself and young, the pregnancy will develop into a
cub; if she has not built up sufficient reserves, the pregnancy will terminate
itself. With the continuing loss of the whitebark, mortality rates will
inevitably increase. Natural vegetation alone will not suffice to keep bears
healthy.
Making matters worse, other
important food sources for bears are also on their way out: berries do not grow
in Yellowstone with the abundance that they do in Glacier. Cutthroat trout are
threatened by lake trout, which have been illegally introduced into Yellowstone
Lake. The migration patterns of army cutworm moths are being influenced by
pesticide spraying in the Midwest and Alberta. The wolf reintroduction program
has resulted in an over-population that has robbed the bears of a large number
of winter-killed carcasses, an often critical food source for bears just
emerging from their dens in spring.
The International Grizzly Bear
Study Team (IGBST) maintains a list of bear mortality records in Yellowstone
and whitebark pine cone reduction data from 2009 through 2013. The correlation
between the two is undeniable. Field operations in 2009 show 80-88% of
whitebarks dead or dying. That year, nine abnormal bear incidents resulting in
bear mortality were recorded (in filtering through the records, I tried to
eliminate any incidents that may have involved defense of cubs or carcasses and
focus only on those that were unusual or in which bears raided campsites or
residential areas in search of food), with one labeled as “cause unknown, under
investigation”.
The change recorded in 2010 is
very dramatic. Whitebark pine health is shown to be alarmingly low with
mortalities heavily increasing. A grand total of 28 incidents occurred that
summer, including the Soda Butte attack, making the 9 of the previous year look
infinitesimal by comparison. Some of these were highly disturbing, including
persistent stalking of hikers and elk hunters during the late season months.
2011 shows some improvement in
the production of whitebark pine cones but that’s in a forest 90% depleted so a
large number of abnormal bear encounters were still reported, totaling 27, with
ten of those classified as “cause unknown, under investigation”. In all, 150
grizzlies died from 2008-2010; a record 51 in 2012 alone.
This data presents a very clear cause
and effect picture yet, astonishingly, many of the very scientists who founded
this information are now either outright denying any impact from the loss of
whitebark pines or contend they are “still studying the issue”. Chris Servheen,
Grizzly Recovery Coordinator, told me personally that there is no evidence that
whitebark pine loss will negatively affect grizzlies. They’re omnivores, he
argues, and will find other food sources.
On that point, he is absolutely
correct because now those same hungry bears are roaming outside the park
boundaries into human habitations, seeking supplemental protein to replace
what’s been lost. The IGBST’s data supports this, showing the majority of bear
mortalities in 2012-13 to be a result of cattle depredation and property damage
in residential areas. Not only has this created the illusion of an exploding
population of grizzlies, it’s drummed up the standard public reaction of fear
and intolerance. Many people are calling for sport and big game hunting
regulations to control this “overflowing population”, with no understanding of
why bears were suddenly turning up in these unusual places.
In the summer of 2012, Department
of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar responded to Wyoming governor Matt Mead’s
request that final assessment and delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly bear
population from the protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) be
completed and proposed by 2014. It is expected that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS) and other agencies will finish their analysis of the situation
by early next year and that the USFWS will then propose the delisting.
Yellowstone’s grizzlies were
originally delisted by the Bush Administration in 2007 partly, according to
Servheen, to show that the ESA was having some success. A Montana environmental
group rightfully challenged this ruling on the grounds that there was no
accurate way to count the number of grizzlies in Yellowstone to conclusively
determine the size of the population and that the USFWS had failed to prove that
the whitebark decline would not harm the bears. The delisting was successfully
overturned in 2009.
The USFWS was dismayed by this
decision and even seemed to take it as a personal affront. They immediately
went into action drafting a second delisting proposal, this time with a “new
approach”: to show – on paper – that the estimated 600 grizzlies of the
Yellowstone ecosystem are actually more in the range of 1,000.
This is not about science or
conservation. It’s a political game. Basically, whoever can “prove” that the
grizzly bear population of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is stable and
growing and can successfully get them delisted gets the keys to the car, so to
speak, of bear management. Personal political stature is the only thing many of
these people are really working for.
Having swallowed the “exploding
bear population” line hook and all, Governor Mead has decided to allow sport
and big game hunting of grizzlies in Wyoming should the delisting be
successful. Mead has cited grizzlies as a “heightened threat to humans” and
there are a number of locals who literally cannot wait for their macho moment
to kill one.
This is a terrifying prospect.
For one, grizzly bears have one of the lowest reproductive rates of any mammal
in North America. They do not reach sexual maturity until five years of age,
females remain with their cubs for up to two years and, depending on
environmental conditions, may not reproduce again for three or four years after
separating from previous young. With the failing health of the Yellowstone
ecosystem, the reproductive rate is already below normal. Throw big game
hunting into the mix and the mortality rate will very quickly exceed the birth
rate, just as it did in the 2007 delisting. This species cannot survive such
grim odds.
The better and sounder solution
would be to let the bears move into the Wind River Range of Wyoming, where
winter temperatures remain cold enough to prevent the mountain pine beetle’s
intrusion and whitebarks are flourishing. Then let’s establish travel corridors
across Montana, linking Yellowstone with Glacier, where the habitat is
healthier and more diverse. This would, of course, involve getting bears over
and under highways. With our technology and know-how this is very much an
attainable goal, though apparently not as easy as simply drafting a potential
extinction plan that could adversely affect the species to a disastrous extent.
And all the while, the voices of
the multitude, the voices that could promulgate change, are silent on the
issue. Many truly have no idea that such critical decisions are on the verge of
being made and others fear bears to such an irrational extent that they
honestly cannot conceive of coexisting with them. But it’s not too late. It’s
not too late to let it be known where we stand on this issue; otherwise I fear
we may wake up one day to find that the wild has been taken out of the
wilderness.
For IBST mortality data visit: nrmsc.usgs.gov/science/igbst/mort
For IGBST whitebark pine data visit: nrmsc.usgs.gov/science/igbst/wbp
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Chris Nunnally studies bears independently, has worked with them in captivity,
maintains an educational blog, “Where the Bear Walks”, has authored a book by
the same name, and writes freelance articles about bear issues. He divides his
time between his hometown in Alabama and the rugged mountains of Alaska and
Montana, which are among the last strongholds the grizzly bear still calls
home.
